He said: “It is great to see the owl back out there again. It was touch and go. These things don’t always work. It had basically gone into shutdown. We managed to get some fluids in it quickly, using a substance which is like a bird form of glucose then, after a while, got it onto a food that is like a pate with all the vitamins it needs. It had a few days on that and, when it took the mouse, we knew we had to get it back out into the wild fairly soon after.

“The longer they are housed, they lose hunting fitness, which can be just as dangerous.”

Upon release, and after several days of TLC, the owl flew straight back to the steading where it had hatched and fledged.It is now hoped it will survive the critical early phase and make a home on the estate.